Scott McLaughlin earns special win with parents on hand at eventful Mid-Ohio race

Associated PressJul 3, 2022, 4:00 PM EDT
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LEXINGTON, Ohio — Scott McLaughlin picked up his second career IndyCar victory, which might go down as one of the most special wins of his career because of his parents’ presence at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.

The New Zealander won Sunday with his nervous mom and dad watching from pit lane. McLaughlin had not seen his family in 31 months because of the pandemic, but his parents finally were able to leave New Zealand in May to attend the Indianapolis 500.

Wayne and Diane McLaughlin booked their trip to maximize their visas and planned nine IndyCar races on their tour of the United States. It took four to see their only their son drive his Team Penske entry to victory lane.

RESULTS: Finishing order, points standings after Mid-Ohio

“I really wanted to get a win here with Mom and Dad,” said McLaughlin, who had won three consecutive V8 Supercars championships in Australia.

“I’m just so excited for him just that he could get a win while we were here,” Wayne McLaughlin told The Associated Press in victory lane. “I knew he wanted to do that, but we’d never talked about it because we didn’t want to put any pressure on him. What an amazing result.”

It was one of the few celebrations at Mid-Ohio, where Chevrolet lost five cars to malfunctions and the Andretti camp fumed over contact between its drivers.

Alexander Rossi and Romain Grosjean kept bumping wheel-to-wheel and their final contact knocked the steering wheel out of Rossi’s hands, leaving him unable to turn as both cars went off course.

Rossi finished 19th, Grosjean was 21st and Colton Herta spun midrace and finished 15th, best of the four-car Andretti fleet.

When he won his first race in February on the street course in St. Petersburg, Florida, he had to celebrate with his parents via FaceTime.

McLaughlin, who won three consecutive V8 Supercars championships in Australia before moving to IndyCar, said his parents had last been present at a win at the Bathurst 1000 in 2019.

“It’s not just to be together, but just to win with them here. That’s the coolest thing,” he said. “Even in Australia, I didn’t really win with them a lot at the race. It just means so much. They’re the people that shaped me as a person.

“I’m probably giving them a few more gray hairs, but that’s part of the development of everything, and I’m really proud to win in front of them, win in front of Mom.”

IndyCar champion Alex Palou finished second for Chip Ganassi Racing and Honda, and Will Power had a brilliant run to put a second Penske driver on the podium. Power had been penalized in qualifying, started 21st, spun in the opening laps and charged through the field to finish third.

The race had the potential to upend the IndyCar standings after the top three drivers in the standings – Indianapolis 500 winner Marcus Ericsson, Power and Penske teammate Josef Newgarden – all had poor qualifying efforts. It put Pato O’Ward, who was fourth in the points, on the pole with the chance to close major ground in the title hunt.

Instead, he and Arrow McLaren SP teammate Felix Rosenqvist were two of the five Chevrolets knocked out early (both with mechanical failures), and Ericsson retained his hold on the standings. He leads Power by 20 points. McLaughlin moved up two spots to seventh, 69 points behind Ericsson.

Rinus VeeKay finished fourth for Ed Carpenter Racing and was followed by Chip Ganassi Racing teammates Scott Dixon and Ericsson.

Jimmie Johnson finished 16th for his best result on a road or street course. He gained 11 positions on track.

O’Ward and Rosenqvist started Sunday expecting to contend for the victory. Instead, both were knocked from the race early with issues to their Arrow McLaren SP entries.

O’Ward, who started from the pole, was screaming over his radio: “I’m losing power! I’m losing power!” fairly early in the race. Rosenqvist had already retired with some sort of electrical or mechanical problem just 18 laps into the race.

“Fuel-delivery wise, it just kept getting worse and worse and worse and then just failed,” O’Ward said. “It’s a bummer. We’ve thrown away an easy podium there.”

O’Ward had been trying to capitalize on poor qualifying efforts from the three championship contenders ahead of him in the standings. Instead, he finished 24th.

Rosenqvist, who is on a mission to keep his IndyCar seat with McLaren with strong runs that will stave off a relocation to McLaren’s upcoming Formula E team, started fourth in search of his first podium of the season. An issue with his Chevrolet ended the Swede’s day early.

Rosenqvist was furious and threw his gloves after climbing from his disabled car.

“It’s just unfortunate. I had a really, really good run. Big loss for us today,” he said. “You never know what would have happened later on, but I really felt like we were sailing. We were fighting for podium finishes and have to come back and do it all again.”

Rosenqvist entered the race coming off four consecutive top-10 finishes as he’s trying to make the case to keep his seat in the No. 7. He signed a multiyear extension with McLaren, but the team doesn’t know if Rosenqvist will drive next year in IndyCar or Formula E.

Hunter Lawrence defends Haiden Deegan after controversial block pass at Detroit

By Mar 20, 2023, 5:05 PM EDT
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Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan
Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

Lawrence defends Deegan
A block pass by Haiden Deegan led to a series of events that eventually led to Jordon Smith failing to make the Main. – Feld Motor Sports

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

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